


Learn to Leave It Behind

by badgerpride89



Series: Afterword [3]
Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Gen, dead peters club tm, gwen is such a strong girl okay, peni is a good friend, survivor's guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 07:53:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17956571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badgerpride89/pseuds/badgerpride89
Summary: Six months after the collider is the anniversary of the worst day in Gwen's life.It’s not any one thing. It’s the combination. She can stomach Peter, Benjamin, and Porker more easily because their differences are more pronounced. Peter is a tired, depressed mess of a man (who is making an effort and slowly crawling out of his hole, she will admit), Benjamin is too still and too pointedly careful with his words, and Porker is jokey and heartfelt.Peni, though. She's just like him.In which a hopper misfire gives Gwen the closure she desperately needs.





	Learn to Leave It Behind

**Author's Note:**

> Just a heads up, everyone, Gwen's classmates think her Peter killed himself and are cruel about it. It's a brief mention but I wanted to let you know just in case.

The whispers start early this year. Gwen feels each one like a knife scraping over her skin. “Her ex-boyfriend killed himself.” “Look at her.” “Seriously messed up, right?” “I heard she didn't even go to the funeral.” “Eh, he was a nutcase, anyway, least he didn't shoot up the whole school while he was at it.”

The way the other kids stop talking when she comes too close hurts even more, though she takes some petty pleasure in the embarrassed looks or averted glances. She feigns ignorance, puts on a smile, and pretends that she is whole and hale, that nothing they say can hurt her. Her spider-sense goes off constantly, so much so that it’s becoming a problem on patrol- too many ‘false’ alarms lead to alarm fatigue. It’ll pass, she hopes. It did last year. She just has to endure until then. She’s gotten really good at that.

Still, there’s only so much she can take this week.

So when Peni asks if anyone wants to help test a multi-person hop the next day, Gwen leaps at the opportunity.

“I want to skip tomorrow and Friday,” she tells her dad that night over sushi at dinner.

He looks her over and takes a thoughtful bite. “I’ll tell the school, sweetheart. You need me to take those days too?”

She’s torn. She really wants her dad, wants to spend the day burrowed in the couch beside him and binge-watching some show on Webflicks. She wants to hurt less and he makes her feel better. At the same time, she’s restless and itchy; the idea of sitting still, of anyone touching her, she just nopes right out of that.

“Tell you what,” Dad offers. “I’ll take Friday. We can go do what you need to do and then go to lunch and movie, how about that?”

Gwen nods in relief. “Yeah, that sounds great, Dad.”

“However, I am concerned about you here all alone all day tomorrow. It’s not a healthy way to grieve, hun.”

Gwen turns to stone. “I've already scheduled a web session with the group, Dad,” she lies easily and prettily. She didn't talk to them the first time Dad enrolled her two years ago and she isn't going to start now. But it's a convenient excuse.

Dad nods. “Good. You want to stop by the station?”

“I'll be fine, Dad.”

“If you say so, kiddo.”

She will be. She always is. She just needs to get away from those idiots for a few days. It's fine. It will be fine.

* * *

She wakes up the next morning, later than a normal weekday but a bit earlier than the weekend. She's the one seeing her dad off to work, a kiss and a goodbye, before she heads back in. She fights the overwhelming urge to go back to bed, pull the covers over her head, and just block out the world for the next ten hours. It would be so easy.

But Peni hops over and takes over Gwen’s bed, tinkering with Gwen’s hopper, her tools spread in a chaotic circle around her and her tongue stuck out in concentration. Any other day, she could handle it without a problem. Today, though...

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. It’s not any one thing, Gwen reflects. It’s the combination. She can stomach Peter, Benjamin, and Porker more easily because their differences are more pronounced. Peter is a tired, depressed mess of a man (who is making an effort and slowly crawling out of his hole, she will admit), Benjamin is too still and too pointedly careful with his words, and Porker is jokey and heartfelt.

Peni, though. She’s just like him. Gender and dimensional differences aside, Gwen’s breath catches at her effortless competence, the sheer cockiness that she’ll be able to steamroll over any obstacle that dares to present itself, and her grim determination to make her version of the world reality.

She’d liked Peni from the word go, looked into the gaping raw wound in her heart and almost found her best friend again. That had disgusted Gwen, like she was replacing him. So she focuses on the differences instead. Peni’s fun and secure in herself and far more willing to explain herself. Those differences should be enough.

Gwen will make them enough.

She sits at her computer and pulls up her audio mixing software. She’s finally got all the individual tracks spruced up the way she wants, now it’s a matter of blending them. She sets her headphones on one ear and begins, the other on Peni and her chatter with Miguel. The others might like Miguel but Gwen is still keeping an eye on him. She hasn’t forgotten why he started this little project in the first place.

The tracks aren’t blending. The bass guitar booms and echoes underneath the rest of the instruments, drawing all too much attention to itself. She can’t get the backup vocals to sync properly with the beat, which the lead vocals follow only about half the time. True, they’re only a small fraction of a beat behind but Gwen’s the drummer - it bugs her, probably way more than anyone else not involved with percussion. She fiddles and fiddles with it but she just can’t get it right.

“You okay, Gwen?” Peni asks as Gwen growls at the uncooperative files.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she grumbles. “This one’s just being difficult.”

Peni giggles. “Well, if you’re looking for a break, have I got news for you.” She flashes Gwen’s hopper with a triumphant smile. “One multi-load hopper ready for testing.”

“Awesome,” Gwen says as she closes her programs. “So what’s the plan?”

Peni lists her plan, the gist of which is to use Gwen’s hopper to head to Peter’s dimension. There’s something about this being the next step in a months-long process and Gwen has to wonder when Peni finds time to do anything but be the SP//DER and work on these projects of hers. Gwen doesn’t follow all of the technobabble, honestly, but basically Peni thinks that the short hop between Gwen and Peter should provide enough data for Miguel and her to perfect the process.

Gwen nods at appropriate intervals until she looks at her watch.

“Peni, we kind of need to do this and get back before my dad gets home tonight.”

She’d had a hard enough time explaining her new haircut after the collider, she shudders to think of how she would explain a girl from another dimension to her dad.

“Miguel?” Peni asks as she repacks her equipment.

“Ready with scanners on,” Miguel answers. “Good luck, ladies.”

Gwen bites her lip. She glances at Peni, who looks chipper and confident about the whole thing. It tickles the back of Gwen’s mind like a brush of fingers through her hair. And that is a too well-worn path so she shoves her unease aside.

“Let’s do it.”

Peni takes her hand and types a series of commands into the hopper strapped to Gwen’s other wrist. There’s a pull and her world fades in and out like the picture from a bad router, Peni’s death grip on Gwen’s hands suddenly the only solid, real thing besides Gwen herself. Her heart leaps into her throat as she’s suddenly thrust in the middle of full on sensory deprivation. Her spider-sense goes wild. The first time wasn’t like this, she could feel her atoms straining and pulling apart and rearranging themselves in a desperate bid to match first the dimensional space, then Miles’ world. Her own test hops had been like walking under a waterfall and coming out on the other end.

This feels wrong.

Her lungs burst and she desperately tries to breathe. She can’t. Her pulse has never beat so loud in her ears.

The wave breaks like the last note from a heavy metal concert and she collapses gratefully onto warm concrete in a bright, sunshine day. Peni coughs beside her. They’re both unharmed, Gwen thinks, hopes. She has all her limbs, all the extremities associated with them. There’s no blood, no broken bones. In fact, she’s slowly warming up thanks to the concrete beneath her.

Houston, we have a problem.

“You know it’s raining in Peter’s dimension, right?” she manages.

Peni takes a deep breath and curses up a storm in what Gwen can only assume is Japanese. Then again, some of the words sound like ones Porker would use. The two of them sit there for a minute, taking in their predicament. At best, Gwen reasons, they’ve just traveled through time- they’re in Peter’s universe, just several days before or after their target. At worst, they’re in some new dimension with rules and logic that will kill them before they can even contemplate a rescue. So yeah, not great in all likelihood.

Gwen pulls herself together and slowly stands, looking for landmarks that will settle the matter one way or another. It’s Times Square but there’s no Coca-Cola ad, no chevys either. No, instead there are several large screens projecting a split screen - one half has a police officer at a podium, the other amateur video footage of a figure clad in a green and gold spider suit. So, definitely a new dimension then.

Gwen does a double take and stares at the footage more closely. The people here look like her, which makes sense given that she and Peni were trying to reach another inner dimension. The spider, though, the spider definitely has a feminine shape- curved hips and a bust. Gwen’s eyes widen. Intellectually, she knows that among the infinite possibilities of the multiverse, of course there would be other spider-women beyond her and Peni. They just have the bad luck of knowing mostly guys.

The presumed spider-woman captivates her. There’s a playfulness to her acrobatics, launching herself at some kind of armored-rhino looking vehicle, feet first punching through the windshield and curving out the driver’s side window, dragging a giant man in a rhino suit behind her. She rolls her landing and uses the momentum to turn and web up her villain. She then shoots a thick bunch at the still zooming tank’s left front tire. The tire stops then breaks apart under the centripetal force. The vehicle careens towards the sidewalk but this is what she’s waiting for- she shoots a line at the disabled tire, pulls it in, and brings the car into a spin around her until it skids to a halt, its momentum dissipated.

Gwen whistles, low and impressed.

“Wow,” Peni says breathlessly.

They glance at each other, grin, then break into helpless giggles. Guess they both need role models or something. Once the fit subsides, they look at each other seriously. Peni pulls her equipment out of her backpack and attaches a cable to each of the two hoppers. She starts zipping through calculations and commands too quickly for Gwen to keep up but that's okay. Instead, Gwen activates the communication array and dials Miguel’s number.

Static. Shit.

“Peni,” she starts slowly, struggling to remain calm. Her hopper doesn't work, the communications are shot, the stabilizer tech could be next. Glitching while stranded on an unknown world is not her idea of a good time.

“The stabilizers are fine,” Peni confirms. “It's the signals between worlds. It'll just take a few minutes to sync back up with the rest. The signal program needs to calculate how much energy the signals need to breach other dimensions. If it doesn't come up in a minute, I’ll just brute force the thing.”

Gwen nods in relief and leaves Peni to it. Before she can do much more than take a defensive position next to Peni and pull her mask out, she spots a web strand and a streak of green and gold heading towards them. She lands on the opposite side of the roof and waits a moment. Peni tenses but keeps working, trusting Gwen to handle the situation. Her trust shouldn’t shock Gwen as much as it does.

Gwen raises her arms placatingly, her fingers splayed. The spider takes a few steps, her arms and hands up as well. Another step and all their spider-senses tingle. Gwen will never get used to the feeling. It’s like a minor to major harmonic shift, the chords dissonant then resolving.

The spider stops then pulls off her mask. Gwen struggles not to react. It hadn’t really occurred to her that a Mary Jane Watson/Parker/whatever could be bitten - if they exist at all, they’re superhero adjacent. But this one, maybe a few years older than the one Peter made a fool of himself over, she’s one of them. Not only one of them, Gwen reflects, one with experience and confidence, demonstrated by her puzzled patience and cultivated stillness.

“Um, hi there?” Gwen calls, stepping between Peni and Mary Jane.

“Nice to meet you,” Mary Jane replies and raises her eyebrow, “Mind explaining what’s going on?”

“We’re from different dimensions,” Gwen says, “We got a little lost.”

Mary covers a giggle with a hand. “I’ll say. That good ole spider luck, huh?”

“Something like that.”

Mary Jane steps towards them. Gwen tenses, automatically shifting to a fighter’s stance. Mary Jane looks unphased but she doesn’t come any closer.

“I’m Mary Jane Watson-Parker,” she introduces herself instead. Of course there’s a Parker here, of course. “Need a hand?”

“Gwen Stacy, Peni Parker,” Gwen says then glances at Peni. “We’re running tests right now.”

Mary Jane’s green, not blue, eyes assess them quickly. Gwen wishes she would stop looking at them like that.

“You really want to run all your tests up here? I’ve got a place nearby. And someone who might be able to help. Honestly, they’d fall over themselves for the chance. You'd make their decade.”

Gwen shakes her head. “Thanks, we’re good.”

Mary Jane sighs and drops to a familiar seated position, the one most spiders assume when they want to appear harmless but be ready to spring into action at a second’s notice.

“Hope you don’t mind my sticking around,” she says as she fiddles with her hair and untucks a long braid. Gwen remembers the trials of getting long hair under the cowl; she’d worn that same long braid folded into itself at her neck for weeks before giving in and just cutting her hair.

Gwen shrugs. “It’s your dimension.”

Mary Jane unravels her braid and begins replaiting it. “So where were you headed when you _accidentally_ ended up in my dimension?”

“A friend’s dimension.”

“Another spider, I’m assuming? I mean, given how completely unsurprised you were at my showing up, you were headed to another spider’s world, right?”

“Something like that.”

“Gwen, you’re being rude,” Peni hisses lowly. Which, yeah, okay, but still. Peni detaches the cord on Gwen’s hopper and says, “I’m gonna need a few hours. I want to map this world properly and double check the software logs before I trust it to take you home.”

The last thing Gwen wants is to end up scattered between dimensions. She turns back to Mary Jane and calls, “About that offer?”

Mary Jane stands. “Still open. You two can websling, right?”

“I’ve got it,” Gwen replies as Peni packs her things. “Lead the way.”

Mary Jane replaces her mask. Gwen does the same, going to one knee as Peni clambers onto her back. Her grip tightens uncomfortably around Gwen’s torso, courtesy of Peni's super-strength.

Mary Jane shoots a strand towards the building across the block and off they go. Gwen loves swinging; it’s the closest to flying under her own power she’ll ever get. Peni buries her face into Gwen’s shoulder, unused to the wind on her face or the sheer exposure of falling without a giant robot protecting you. Gwen suppresses a chuckle.

True to her word, the trip takes about ten minutes by web. They land on the tiny fire escape of an old high rise and Mary Jane unlocks the window as Peni slides off Gwen’s back. The apartment inside is a tiny, one bed that feels bigger than it is. The main area sparse, save a corner which looks like a wootube set, complete with video camera, boom mic, and a person bent over and fiddling with it.

“Hey, babe,” they say absently.

Gwen freezes.

“Hey, yourself,” Mary Jane smiles as she removes her mask and walks over to them. “I brought company.”

The person straightens and turns towards them. They shove their thick, black-rimmed glasses over their nose, their brown eyes widening. They yelp but stand their ground with all too familiar curiosity as Peni steps out from behind Gwen.

“Ohmygoodness, wow,” that voice says again in breathless wonder.

Gwen stands stock still, rooted in place. She thinks she stops breathing.

“Guess your dissertation was right on the money after all,” Mary Jane quips as she snakes them in a hug and kisses their brown cheek.

“Konichiwa, hajimemashite yoroshiku,” Peni chirps and bows. “I’m Peni Parker and this is my friend, Gwen Stacy.”

“Pleasure,” the new Parker stammers. Gwen hasn’t moved, can’t move because that voice won’t let her. “Pat Parker-Watson.” They turn to Mary Jane. “What-”

Mary Jane hastily explains.

“I take a quick shower and you find spider-people from another dimension?” Pat practically shrieks.

Mary Jane smiles. “And that’s why my tech support doesn’t get to take a shower until after I get home,” she teases.

What small part of Gwen’s mind that isn’t having a silent panic attack joins the rest.

Pat shakes their head. “Only you.”

“Thanks for letting us hang out here while I finish my testing,” Peni says then cocks her head in feigned innocence. “Mary Jane said you might be able to help us…”

“Um, well, I’d have to dig my dimensional studies out of my brain-”

“Oh, I think I can handle that part,” Peni says lightly. “I just need a hand with the physics and mathematical equivalents of this world- I think we can start with your electron mass standard and work our way up?”

“Boy have you come to the right place,” Pat smiles, disentangling themself from Mary Jane and cocking their head towards the bedroom.

Peni glances at Gwen but at a shake of Mary Jane’s head, she follows Pat, taking a seat at the desk inside the room.

Not that Gwen really notices. Or cares. Of all the days and all the dimensions, why this one on this day, she thinks helplessly. Gwen swallows a whimper. She could handle a Parker who looks like him, manage one who thinks like him. One who _sounds_ like him? One who willingly supports another hero? That is beyond what she can endure.

Mary Jane gently takes her hand and steers her towards the kitchenette, away from the excited technobabble and that voice. Gwen can still _hear_ it, shuffling through her ears and rattling around her brain.

Mary Jane rifles through her fridge, pulling out several fruits and dairy products. She hands Gwen a large utility knife and a bag of apples. Gwen blinks, surprise momentarily overriding her panic.

“Mind chopping those up for me?” Mary Jane asks. “I was thinking we could make smoothies for everyone. I don’t know about you but I’m starving.”

Gwen nods automatically. The items clink and clang when she flings them onto the island. She opens the bag as Mary Jane fusses around her, noisily opening and closing her cupboards and manhandling her scary big blender.

“- wait, the electrons can do that? Superposition doesn’t-”

Gwen grits her teeth and starts chopping the apples. Mary Jane joins her soon after, dicing the peaches. Slowly, bit by bit, Gwen feels herself ease. Her shoulders are too tense and she still wants to cry or scream, she’s not sure which, but she’s fairly confident she won’t. Not yet.

Mary Jane puts the chopped apples into the blender along with the peaches and some finely diced kale. Gwen keeps chopping.

“Either one of you have any food allergies? Dairy? Nuts?” Mary Jane loudly asks.

“Dairy milk, for me,” Gwen replies in between cuts. “She’s fine. Likes strawberries.”

“Almond milk and strawberries it is. And what do you like?”

“Pineapple.”

“Well, I wasn’t using my taste buds anyway,” Mary Jane jokes but opens a can anyway.

She seals the blender then starts it. It is god awfully loud. Gwen breathes deeply for the first time since entering the apartment. She keeps chopping anyway.

Mary Jane taps her shoulder and asks, “You need anything else?”

Gwen shakes her head. “I’ll make it until I get home.”

Mary Jane nods sadly. “You ever find yourself in the neighborhood again, hit me up. It’d be nice to bitch with someone who actually gets it. Sympathy’s nice and all but no substitute for someone in a similar situation.”

Gwen snorts over the din. “Guaranteed Peni will have you connected to the rest of the web by the weekend.”

“Really? Sweet of her,” Mary Jane replies as the blender winds down. The bedroom is mercifully quiet, the voices within a low murmur punctuated by Miguel’s low bass.

Mary Jane pours the concoction into four glasses and ducks into the bedroom with two. When she returns, she puts a ridiculously long, twisty straw into the last and puts it down next to Gwen so she can drink and chop at the same time. Gwen slurps some. That really should not taste as good as it does, are they even really the fruit she thinks they are? Mary Jane just chuckles and drinks.

A minute later, she gathers the rest of the apples Gwen’s chopped, swapping them for thick, hard sweet potatoes. Gwen glances at her questioningly but Mary Jane waves her off. “I’ll just freeze the rest of these. Save us a boatload of time later. Have at the potatoes. I have a million recipes.”

Gwen nods, slurps her smoothie, and starts chopping.

By the time Peni comes out, Gwen’s pretty sure she’s chopped, bagged and frozen most of Mary Jane’s fresh food supply. The older woman is nothing but grateful.

“No excuses for takeout every day this week, trust me, you’re doing us a favor,” Pat calls as they exit the bedroom behind Peni.

It all comes _lurching_ back.

Peni fiddles with Gwen’s hopper real quick. She nods and Gwen takes it as permission. She starts the hop sequence.

“Nice meeting you, Gwen,” Pat says, a sad smile on their face, though they don’t quite meet her gaze.

She doesn’t reply.

* * *

Gwen hops home to find her apartment lit gold and pink by the late day sun. She flings the hopper off her wrist and plops onto the couch, angry tears burning through her eyes. It’s not fair, it’s just not fair, she hiccups and scowls around the thought. She screams, one long, lost note reverberating with the pain and injustice of it all.

“Gwen?” flits hesitantly from behind her.

Gwen gulps, her breath hitches as she turns. Peni watches uncertainly, taking slow deliberate steps towards the couch.

“Peni, wh-what are you doing here?” Gwen says, her voice cracking as she desperately tries to wipe away the tears and play it cool. “I thought you were heading home.”

“I wanted to check up on you,” she replies, her hands curled into her backpack straps.

Gwen tries to laugh but it comes out as a morass of noise. “I’m-I’m fine, really. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Gwen.”

Yeah. Okay.

Gwen pulls her knees up and curls into herself. Peni sits on the armrest.

“I’m sorry,” Peni starts. “I didn’t know it would-”

“That Parker sounded just like him,” she whispers. “Not close. Exactly. Even that voice hitch thing.”

Peni winces. Her spider hops off her shoulder and onto Gwen’s, cooing in her ear.

“That can’t have been easy.”

“It’s been three years.” Only three years. God.

“It’s okay to be sad,” Peni tries.

Gwen snuffles and shakes her head. If only. “I know that.” Her voice is razor sharp. She takes a deep breath. “I know,” she says more softly, she hopes more controlled. “But I’m not sad right now.”

“So, you’re..”

“I’m mad, Peni,” she growls as she buries her head in her knees. If she tries hard enough, maybe she can bury the roiling rage in her gut, the swirling, searing feeling that just won’t stop or be ignored anymore.

She leaps off the couch and paces the room, her nails digging painfully into her palms. “No, I’m not mad, I’m furious, I’m- gah,” she finishes with a frustrated shriek.

Peni sits there patiently, concentrating on Gwen like she’s the only person in the world.

“I- Did you _see_ them? I just-”

“I got angry when I started high school and realized my dad wouldn’t be there to help me with nanorobotics like he promised me, I wrecked half the computer lab,” Peni offers lightly.

“That’s not the same thing,” Gwen seethes, “Your dad didn’t experiment and mutate himself into a monster lizard all because he didn’t trust you to handle things!”

“Gwen…”

“He didn’t trust me, Peni,” Gwen’s voice breaks. “He didn’t trust me so he threw himself into getting his own powers and he- why couldn’t he just trust me? And then them, those two, they’re a team, Peni, Pat supports her and helps her and- and I wanted that, I wanted that for me and Peter. And he’s gone because that damn serum burned through him and turned him into a mindless monster and I couldn’t-

“Why couldn’t he just trust me?” Gwen finishes with a whimper.

She coughs around the gunk in her throat and shakes her head. “I think I hate a dead boy, Peni,” she says dully. How petty is that? “We, we could’ve had that but he just…”

Took it from her. Them. She still misses him but now it’s mixed with a deep rooted resentment, piercing her insides with the confusing combination. Maybe it was always there, buried deep within where she could forget about it, pretend it didn’t exist. But dammit, she’s furious, she’s jealous, she wants to go back in time and shake him until he forgets that damn idea, until he realizes he’s only human and too damn important to risk on his reckless drive to join her in the field.

Tears blur her vision as she cries again.

It feels like that first day all over again.

“It’s not your fault, Gwen.” Peni’s voice echoes through the room.

“Like that-”

“It’s not your fault,” Peni reasserts fiercely. “It’s not your fault, it’s not his fault, it’s a series of bad luck and dumb decisions but it’s not your fault or his. It’s not.”

The spider hums in agreement in Gwen’s ear. Peni marches over to her and stares up at her until Gwen meets her gaze.

“You did your best. I’m sure of it,” Peni says. “I’m sure because you always do, Gwen. You protect everyone you can, every time, no questions asked. And you’re damn good at it. It sucks that that happened and I’m sorry everything sucks right now.”

Gwen nods, even though she doesn’t quite agree. Her breathing steadies.

“I failed him. First real test and I failed.”

“You didn’t, Gwen,” Peni whispers. Her gaze shifts towards the ground. “That serum would’ve burned through him no matter what. If you hadn’t been there, he would’ve just died mindless and alone. Instead, he knew who he was and that his friend was with him. You gave him that gift, Gwen. Not everyone gets that.”

There’s something deeply personal in Peni’s tone. Gwen suddenly remembers their movie night three weeks ago when Peni off-handedly mentioned that her Doc Ock had turned some kids into godzilla monsters. Gwen’s heart aches for her friend, for her lost best friend, and for the multiverse, that such shitty situations keep cropping up over and over again. She doesn’t feel better, exactly, but some internal pressure releases.

She’ll take it.

“Thanks, Peni.”

* * *

The next day, Gwen’s dad drops her off at the graveyard. She wears white, not black, not like last year or the year before, because Peter always said it was her color. Her dad waits by the entrance but the gulf between them feels smaller this year. Maybe this is progress?

She stops at Peter’s headstone and crouches down in front of it. May has already been by; the grave is clean, the weeds pulled, and a fresh bouquet of flowers rests beside it. Gwen pulls the stickers Miles made her out of her coat and places one of the stylized spiders on the bouquet. She kneels there for a minute then sighs.

“I’m really mad at you, you know,” she tells her best friend, like she did back in middle school when his chemistry experiments junked up her hair or wrecked her clothes. “You’re really missing out here. Multiple dimensions, Pete, multiple spider-people, dimension-hopping, people who can actually keep up with you…” she ends with a dark chuckle.

“You would have loved it. And I would have loved doing it all with you.” She can picture it, too, telling him about Miles’ universe, showing off the hopper and introducing him to Peni, the wide-eyed, horrified look his face would have after meeting Peter and Benjamin and Porker. But it’s only a dream, a beautiful, terrible what if.

“I miss you, jerk,” she says with a half smirk then ducks her head. “I really do. I thought I would have to do this on my own after you. I don’t, have to, now, that is, but it’s...yeah.”

She stands and brushes the dirt off her pants.

“Wish me luck, Pete.”


End file.
